Friday, September 29, 2006

Lotto hopes dashed…every other week

When the lotto prize reaches above about 9 million dollars, my husband HAS to buy a lotto ticket. After he has bought one, or I have bought one for him, he then sits down and proceeds to list all the things we can do when we win the lotto. Like first we will go on a holiday, then we will buy a house, a new car, take the family to China for the Olympics. All good stuff! The thing is that I have never really been into the lotto; my family aren’t big lotto ticket people. Hence I don’t really see the excitement in buying a piece of paper for 10-15 dollars and then hoping, that out of the millions of people who have also bought a ticket that we will win. Maybe I am a realist but I don’t really think that the chances of winning are that high, at all! But as he says, you have to be in it to win it!

After our discussion of all the cool stuff that we will buy, do and experience I must admit that I do get a bit excited. But I always have to pull myself back to reality and think hang on a sec, this is the lotto, the chances of winning anything are extremely low. After this discussion, I always feel like maybe our current lifestyle is not really good enough. L In reality it is! We are doing great for people in our early/mid twenties, we have minimal debt apart from our giant HECS debts, we own lots of shares, and we studied hard to get good jobs that we love doing, we are married and we are happy! What’s better than that? Well maybe a slightly higher salary would be nice, but we don’t really need to win lotto.

Last year I bought a lotto ticket for us and I won $40 (not much), but the next week I won $120. I caught the bug after that, but only for a week. I bought a ticket the week after that and then we won nothing. See I am happy to be committed to something as long as it is committed to me also! And Lotto YOU FAILED ME!

The only upside to buying a ticket for me is that at least I know I am contributing money to Lottery West. My hard earned Lotto ticket money is helping a lot of charities and community projects, which are funded by Lotto grants. Apart from the extremely distant possibility of winning, the fact that we are donating to a body that makes a difference in this community is the only reason I allow the hubby to keep buying them tickets.